Thursday, May 19, 2016

Rock Hound

I'm set up at Rockhound, which by now is very familiar territory. This is the same spot I had in March: number 15, right up at the top of the park.

Yesterday was quite a day. I left Valley of Fires, not knowing exactly where I'd wind up. My first stop was a place called Three Rivers Petroglyph Site, managed by the BLM. Here's a YouTube video about this site. I have a reasonable acquaintance with rock art from my river guide days up in Utah, so I was curious about this site. The reviews I'd read mentioned that the site had some RV spots, including two with electric hookups, so i thought maybe I'd just spend the day there looking at petroglyphs.

Didn't. The two RV sites were occupied; I hung out for a while to watch and have a snack, and I tend to think the occupants of those sites were workers engaged in building a new visitor center. The rest of the area was essentially a parking lot with picnic tables.

The petroglyphs were, as they always are, fascinatingly obscure. I wasn't fascinated enough, I guess, to spend a whole day there. And the weather was beginning to close in, so I moved on. Here some snaps of what they're like:

I had my eyes on staying at a New Mexico state park in Las Cruces... but it turns out it doesn't support camping of any kind, let alone RV's. I was considering just pushing on another hour or so and arriving a day early at Rock Hound, but just then the severe weather alert on my phone went off, and some ugly looking radar images suggested I hole up somewhere quick. Walmart, where else?!

Just as I got settled there and checked with Customer Service, the heavens opened!

I watched the show and followed the progress of the storm system on the radar app, made some dinner, read, and crashed. This morning (Thursday) I drove a little over an hour to Rockhound, and here I'll be until I leave for Tucson tomorrow.

Here we go ...

This is about my travels in a 1999 24-foot class C motorhome, which I sometimes call "the Beast." It's also about projects, renovations, repairs, and plans which occur to me when I'm on the road.

There's a lot of these RV travel blogs out there. I've listed below some of the ones I read regularly. My intention is not so much to publish a travel magazine, but to record where I went and what I did and what I did to the rig and what I'd like to do. Something close to the original meaning of "log." Random thoughts on the general enterprise of RV travel will creep in.